90
Opinion of the Court
in fact, acknowledges that the language of the citizen-suit provision is ambiguous. Post, at 131.
Justice Stevens relies on our treatment of a similar issue as jurisdictional in Gwaltney of Smithfield, Ltd. v. Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Inc., 484 U. S. 49 (1987). Post, at 114. The statute at issue in that case, however, after creating the cause of action, went on to say that "[t]he district courts shall have jurisdiction, without regard to the amount in controversy or the citizenship of the parties," to provide various forms of relief. 33 U. S. C. § 1365(a) (emphasis added). The italicized phrase strongly suggested (perhaps misleadingly) that the provision was addressing genuine subject-matter jurisdiction. The corresponding provision in the present case, however, reads as follows:
"The district court shall have jurisdiction in actions brought under subsection (a) of this section against an owner or operator of a facility to enforce the requirement concerned and to impose any civil penalty provided for violation of that requirement." 42 U. S. C. § 11046(c).
It is unreasonable to read this as making all the elements of the cause of action under subsection (a) jurisdictional, rather than as merely specifying the remedial powers of the court, viz., to enforce the violated requirement and to impose civil penalties. "Jurisdiction," it has been observed, "is a word of many, too many, meanings," United States v. Vanness, 85 F. 3d 661, 663, n. 2 (CADC 1996), and it is commonplace for the term to be used as it evidently was here. See, e. g., 7 U. S. C. § 13a-1(d) ("In any action brought under this section, the Commission may seek and the court shall have jurisdiction to impose . . . a civil penalty in the amount of not more than the higher of $100,000 or triple the monetary gain to the person for each violation"); 15 U. S. C. § 2622(d) ("In actions brought under this subsection, the district courts shall have jurisdiction to grant all appropriate relief,
Page: Index Previous 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007